“When I was a child I used to put the food I hated on my older brother’s plate. Sorry.”

“Dear mum, you finally made me walnut bread, but it was so horrible I threw it down the toilet. Sorry.”

The day was created in response to the results of a national poll on apologizing that showed that most people didn’t like apologizing. The idea is that if everyone says sorry on the same day, the act of apologizing will become more lighthearted.

While the Ayamari Bijin site had a beautiful girl for every day of the month, Bijin Tokei (Beautiful Girl Clock) goes one step further by featuring a different girl every minute, who holds up a chalk board with the time on it and poses for the camera.

Bijin Tokei has been going for some time now and has diversified into creating one for Shibuya Girls, one for Boys and even foreign ones in France and Korea. They recently announced that the next project is Sapporo Beautiful Girl Clock.

Undeniably beautiful girls liven up the mundane process of telling the time, but can they also encourage Japan to say they’re sorry? Do you have anything you need to get off your chest?

Postscript: OK, our turn to apologize. On Dec. 10 the Ayamari Biji site suddenly became a big ad for eating juicy steaks at family restaurant chain Gusto. The joke is Gusto’s apology: “Our steaks are so big they won’t fit on the plate! Sorry!”

Though we feel slightly duped, we’re still impressed at the trouble they went to.

Felicity Hughes is a freelance journalist who has written articles for The Japan Times, Metropolis magazine and The Guardian. She enjoys hunting down trends and relishes ripping the plastic wrapping off shiny new stuff. Her CV lives here.